Fortunately, Tuesday dawned bright and sunny - no snow, no grey sky but, unfortunately, no warmer either ;o) The Sat Nav set and it was time to go and pick up Emily's friend, Emily and head up to London to The O2 Arena for the girls to see One Direction.
My Emily is definitely more sensibly dressed in this photo - she takes after her mother and doesn't like the cold! We stopped for a quick photo with the Dome in the background and then headed inside to get some lunch before the doors opened.
We ended up in TGI Fridays because we know we'll enjoy the food and each time we've been we've been lucky enough to get seated straight away. Unfortunately, this time we were seated outside and it was still really cold because although you're in the dome, it's not much warmer than outside - you just don't have the wind chill to contend with.
We finished our meal around the time that the doors were due to open so, after a trip to the Ladies, we headed to the doors where they were to go in. I saw them into the queue and then left them too it. This was their queue waiting to go in (and it did stretch a bit further back too).
I decided I'd take a walk outside and had seen the signs pointing down to the river. We had been going to walk down to the river once before but by the time we'd eaten it was dark outside so we had to abort that idea. This time I just followed the signs and was there in no time. I'm not sure what this sculpture is meant to be but it was quite interesting to look at.
The cable cars come over the river to the other side but that's not something I'd be bothered about doing (I don't like heights!). I don't know what I'd expected but there certainly wasn't much to see at the river so I just had a little walk and then turned round to head back again.
One of the buildings next to The O2.
A few boats moored off shore.
The covered walkway down to the river cruise.
The Dome to the left and walkway to the right.
As you can see, these reeds were being blown quite strongly. I think I was out there for about 3/4 of an hour but was so cold I was more than ready to get inside again.
There were a lot of Mums who had dropped their daughters off and the coffee shops were doing a roaring trade. I went in to Starbucks and as I got served a table became free and I was able to get a seat. Another Mum came over and asked if she could join me - we chatted for a little while and then both settled down to read our books. We were able to spend a few hours in the warmth of Starbucks before going out to wait for the girls to come out of the concert.
I took this photo as I waited where I'd said I would. the people in front of me were all waiting for children to come out. It was interesting listening to the languages being spoken, there must have been people from all across Europe. I certainly heard French, Italian and Spanish as well as other languages I didn't recognise.
The girls had had a fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed the concert. We hit rush hour traffic as we headed home and it was about 7pm by the time we got back. Watching/listening to the videos Emily had taken was quite amusing - there was a lot of screaming going on as well as some singing along. I'm glad they had such a good time!
xx
